Detaching from identity through acceptance of our contradictions
Hello.
Let’s use the observer to notice our attachments to identity.
When I was in college, I really wanted to have a fire in the backyard, but I didn’t want to burn the grass. So I built a fire on top of a flagstone — and it exploded. Coals flew everywhere, almost lighting the yard on fire.
So, I’m stupid.
Later, my oven broke. I came up with a hypothesis about the problem, looked online, found videos that supported it, took the oven apart, and fixed it.
So, I’m really smart.
And now, here I am — being vulnerable, telling you about myself in an effort to help you grow. So, I’m generous and humble.
Yet I also benefit from this exchange — especially if you go and visit my blog. So, I’m selfish and arrogant. I’m engaging in an intellectual pursuit, showcasing my mind for my own gain.
And I’m also talking about myself. So there are two of me — at the same time, I’m observing the interaction between I’s analysis of myself.
It’s the observer watching the object of the interaction of I’s analysis of self.
So I am the observer and the observed.
So I am nothing and everything.
Which strangely feels a lot more free and easy than being smart and stupid.
The Practice of Seeing Without Defense
This small exercise — to watch ourselves from both within and without — loosens the grip of self-concept. It teaches us to notice the sensations that arise when we say I am stupid or I am smart, without rushing to disprove one or cling to the other.
Most of us defend against discomfort by editing our identity. We reject traits that feel inconsistent with who we believe ourselves to be. But spiritual and psychological maturity ask something different: to remain with the tension.
To feel the sting of inadequacy without collapse.
To feel the pride of competence without inflation.
To witness both, and recognize that neither defines us.
Acceptance Beyond Identity
This is the practice of cognitive and emotional acceptance — not resignation, but spacious awareness. The realization that we contain every polarity: foolish and wise, selfish and generous, kind and cruel.
When we stop defending against contradiction, we discover something more stable than self-esteem: equanimity. We become less reactive, more whole.
Spiritually, this awareness points toward nonduality — the direct experience that the observer and the observed are one. What we call “self” and “world” are not separate realities, but a single unfolding field of perception.
From that view, there’s nothing left to fix or prove. There is only the ongoing practice of seeing clearly.
And strangely, that feels much more free and easy than being smart and stupid.
